Sunday, November 28, 2010

A work in progress, redux

THIS HAS ALL HAPPENED BEFORE, AND IT WILL ALL HAPPEN AGAIN...

So.... if this post looks familiar, and the URL doesn't, it's because I accidentally deleted my blog while trying to... well, nevermind. The point is, I've been gone for a few weeks, and now I'm back (so hopefully it won't happen again, despite the Battelstar Galactica reference). ﻿To make it up to you, I'm relisting all of my original posts, minus a few of the photos I'm afraid. And then there will be new material. A lot has happened since then. Thanksgiving, for one thing. I hope yours was happy. And now, back to the show, already in progress.

A work in progress... Isn't everything? This blog, for instance, is a work in progress. My next novel, Orleans, a massive work in progress. Who I am going to be when I grow up... also a work in progress (that's very zen, actually-- I am and WILL BE a WIP).

So, to explain. I already have a blog on My Space. If you follow such things, you may know that it also appeared on my Amazon Author Page. That's no longer possible without an RSS feed, so time for a new blog. Ta da!

The thing is, I'm technologically an Eloi (that's a reference to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, kids! Check it out! The original movie's pretty good, too!). So I'm muddle along making this blog prettier and more interesting as time goes by. In the meantime I just need it up and running. That's where my fantastic website design goddess, Ren comes in. She's the one that put the aqua blue shine on my website. Thank you for the header, Ren!

And now, to explain the title. A I've said, I'm working on my next novel. After reading the last draft, my manager Garrett said "The first hundred pages were great, I kept reading. The last hundred were fantastic. It's that middle hundred that needs work."

I live in the middle hundred. To me, a book is like a tent with two poles holding up the first and third acts. If the tent sags in the middle, it's not a tent, it's a catastrophe. The struggle for me, and in my experience many other writers, is to keep the middle hundred from sagging. That is what this blog will be about. Writing the middle hundred and all the other things that happen when you SHOULD be writing the middle hundred and you're designing a blog instead. I hope you'll stick with me. I'll try to be interesting.